9.23.2018

Casi un país (3) / Elizabeth Schön

Almost A Country (3)

He said we’d go see different places in Caracas today. He didn’t explain which ones. Whatever place we might visit, we’ll find something beautiful. I don’t think ugliness exists; if it does, it is surely the result of there not being enough clarity to appreciate the streets, the sharpness of the colors, the patience of the breeze that knocks on the large wooden doors until they open making a sound very close to the one that arises if you write on an old, worn chalkboard, with many cracks.
I approach the window. A yellow leaf falls on my shoulder. I like it, it has the same color as my dress. I’ll save it in one of my books, I feel as though everything that looks like me or my things belongs to me.
The sun announces that Juan is coming to pick me up. We will soon walk together. We will see streets, buildings, plazas, churches and in every corner, every bend, I will discover a detail, a blade of grass I have never seen before, and I will immediately recall the first day they gave me a hobby horse and I told myself I would ride him through all the cities in the world. The horse broke but now I have a friend and together we will get to know each one of this city’s houses, with names like the sound the waterfall makes when it pours from the highest point of the mountain.